Wellington, June 19 NZPA - Cosmetics manufacturers are being urged by their industry association to register products with a quasi-judicial environmental watchdog if they contain nanoparticles.

The Cosmetic, Toiletry and Fragrance Association issued the alert after media inquiries tipped them off to a report from a Wellington-based thinktank, the Sustainability Council, which warns consumers of cosmetics that contain nanotechnology.

"Any cosmetic product that is sold containing nano technology must be notified to the Environmental Risk Management Authority (Erma)," the association told its members.

Failure to notify Erma of products containing nano ingredients other than titanium dioxide or zinc oxide "exposes any member company to prosecution under the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act," the association said.

But it also told cosmetics companies there were no costs to filing the notice, " and there is no additional requirements once it is done".

Many nanoparticles measure less than 100 nanometres (nm) - one-billionth of a metre - thick. A single human red blood cell is around 500nm wide. Recent scientific research has suggested that nanoparticles commonly used in cosmetics and sunscreens could present serious new health and environmental risks.

Five classes of nanomaterials have attracted controversy recently including nanoparticles in cosmetics; anti-bacterial silver nanoparticles used in cleaning products and even clothing; nanoparticles of zinc oxide in sunscreens; cerium oxide nanoparticles in fuels; and titanium dioxide nanoparticles in some sunscreens.

The Friends of the Earth environmental lobby targeted cosmetic giant L'Oreal at the Melbourne Fashion Festival earlier this year for being the top nanotechnology patent holder in the United States.

And in New Zealand, the Sustainability Council today warned that New Zealand women are being exposed to cosmetics containing types of nanomaterials that have been stripped from shop shelves in Europe and Australia.

Products containing nanoparticles called "fullerenes" remained on sale in New Zealand even though the European cosmetics industry had pledged not to use them until more was known about their safety. Fullerenes are hollow, soccer-ball-like carbon nanostructures of around 1nm in size and are used in some 'anti-ageing' cosmetic products sold in this country.

The European Cosmetics Association has an effective voluntary moratorium on the use of fullerenes, and fullerene-containing cosmetic products have also been withdrawn from the market in Australia, after the regulator there said they would need to undergo risk assessment.

The UK Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution has rated fullerenes as "potentially harmful" and among four nanomaterials that give rise to "the greatest concerns" and a recent nanosafety review there concluded that there was not sufficient information to even allow a risk assessment of fullerenes.

Four years ago, the Ministry for Research, Science and Technology warned that there was "little room for complacency" and that the drive to commercialise nanotechnologies should not overwhelm good governance.

The Sustainability Council said today that a lack of action since then means New Zealand must now play catch-up to regulate nanotechnologies, with more complex, and troubling applications looming on the horizon.

It said one of the very few NZ regulations on nanotech products specified that fullerenes and other nanomaterials are not to be used in cosmetics without manufacturers or importers notifying Erma.

"Yet they sit on local shelves and the regulator has received no notifications since introducing this scant reporting duty four years ago," the council said.

Erma declined to comment in detail on the report because it had not yet seen a copy. Its hazardous substances general manager Andrea Eng said nanomaterials in cosmetics were covered by a "cosmetic products groups standard" aligned with European rules and reviewed annually.

But she confirmed that Erma had received no notification of nanomaterials in cosmetics, other than the most common ones, zinc oxide and titanium dioxide, which were not required to be notified.